"You've lost me here...do you believe they are turning away custom because I'm shooting on Fuji??"
No. I am saying they should be glad to have business at all, I guess. Doing things one way might save them money and time, but it is not in the spirit of being a true "pro" and "custom" lab. Yet again, I think the word "pro" and "custom" are being thrown around quite a bit.
"Any printer I've talked to will recommend a colour film which matches their colour set up. Perhaps in LA you can demand which paper you would like your photos printed on, but in little old UK, I've yet to experience this from a local pro lab."
This is unfortunate. Any printer I have personally talked to will ask me what paper I would like the work printed on before beginning work. (If you were the printer, wouldn't you? I sure would.) I don't have to "demand" anything. "Specify" would be the word, not "demand", and I can assure you that many, many photographers will specify a printing paper. They know starting filtrations for Fuji and Kodak, for each film and paper. At A and I, they have a notebook on hand with all the handy reference information. I remember having a discussion with one of their printers, Keith, about how their starting filtrations were so different from the ones on the other enlargers I used. (Each enlarger head, bulb, film batch, paper batch, and chemical process is slightly different.) He knew most of it by heart, as far as the most common films went. He also had every printing paper you could imagine on hand. Same with the extraordinarily talented Isgo Lepejian's darkroom (whose son owns A and I).
Their job is to provide you with what you prefer, not to have preferences of their own or change the way you work. I would venture to guess that if a lab tells you preferences, they are simply trying to save time on truly custom work and avoid having to stock a variety of brands and types of paper; *not* because they can't get results on another product.
No. I am saying they should be glad to have business at all, I guess. Doing things one way might save them money and time, but it is not in the spirit of being a true "pro" and "custom" lab. Yet again, I think the word "pro" and "custom" are being thrown around quite a bit.
"Any printer I've talked to will recommend a colour film which matches their colour set up. Perhaps in LA you can demand which paper you would like your photos printed on, but in little old UK, I've yet to experience this from a local pro lab."
This is unfortunate. Any printer I have personally talked to will ask me what paper I would like the work printed on before beginning work. (If you were the printer, wouldn't you? I sure would.) I don't have to "demand" anything. "Specify" would be the word, not "demand", and I can assure you that many, many photographers will specify a printing paper. They know starting filtrations for Fuji and Kodak, for each film and paper. At A and I, they have a notebook on hand with all the handy reference information. I remember having a discussion with one of their printers, Keith, about how their starting filtrations were so different from the ones on the other enlargers I used. (Each enlarger head, bulb, film batch, paper batch, and chemical process is slightly different.) He knew most of it by heart, as far as the most common films went. He also had every printing paper you could imagine on hand. Same with the extraordinarily talented Isgo Lepejian's darkroom (whose son owns A and I).
Their job is to provide you with what you prefer, not to have preferences of their own or change the way you work. I would venture to guess that if a lab tells you preferences, they are simply trying to save time on truly custom work and avoid having to stock a variety of brands and types of paper; *not* because they can't get results on another product.
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